Screw Destiny in the Face
by PurplePoctopus
Summary: Ben Braeden always had a feeling that something wasn't quite right. He'd dream of monsters, and wake up feeling like they were real. Then, Jesse Turner showed up, and brought everything back. A Team Free Will 2.0 fic.  Ben, Jesse and Claire
1. Chapter 1

Ben Braeden had lived for years with this itch in the back of his head. He'd often ponder the nagging feeling that something wasn't right; that something was missing, but never said it out loud. How would people treat you if you said you were having dreams about a man named Dean Winchester who hunted monsters, and you were almost sure that they were real? Ben was twenty-one when Jesse Turner showed up at his door with a sawed off and a machete. Before Ben could contemplate what was going on, before he even introduced himself, Jesse touched Ben's forehead, allowing everything to pour back. Monsters are real. Jesse was one of them. Well, at least that's what Jesse called himself. Ben never thought that he was very monster-like, but Jesse always shrugged him off whenever he said that.

Ben had a Mustang, and Jesse equipment. They were the perfect match. Well, as perfect as one could be in the Hunting world. They would often bicker about stupid things, like diner or drive through, or AC/DC or Zeppelin, but, they worked well together. Jesse was the brains, and Ben the brawn. Of course, it wasn't all peaches and cream after Jesse restored Ben's memory. No. There was the obvious, "How did you find me?" and the begging, "Why me?" when things got too hard, but beside the questions, there were the injuries, the screw-ups. Ben watched a little girl bleed to death on the pavement because he shot too early. Jesse didn't seem to be too fazed by it, but Jesse didn't seem to be fazed by anything, except hustling pool. Ben wondered if that was what Jesse meant by him being a monster.

The answer to the first question had been easy. Ben was easier to find than a neon sign in a haystack. He had done a shit job of covering his tracks, mainly because he didn't know he had any tracks that needed to be covered. The second was a bit more difficult. Why him? Jesse had said it was because Ben had known before. Before an angel wiped his memory. He was the best choice, by default. That never sat too well with Ben, but it was better to have the itch answered than to let it grow. So, he put up with Jesse, and lived life on the road, hunting after monsters and sucking down cheap coffee and beer like air, just to keep himself from screwing up. He didn't think that he could take seeing another person die at his hands again.


	2. Chapter 2

Claire Novak was young when her father disappeared. He was crazy. He'd walk around the house and mumble about angels, and it'd make her mother cry. She was always a quiet child with few friends, but after her father left, she withdrew from everyone. School became her priority. Numbers would always be there. They were concrete and stable, and would always be the same. They stayed the same, even when her mother started drinking, even when she learned that angels and demons were real.

Even when she herself became an angel.

She tried her hardest to forget what had happened when Castiel used her body and made her watch her father die on the floor, but it would always creep up in her dreams. Even at twenty years old, she was still haunted by her father, lying there. Claire started searching for the truth when she was young, around sixteen. She went on her first hunt at eighteen, and by twenty, she had the Beetle of death, as the people at the bar she worked at when she wasn't on a hunt dubbed it. She loved her little bug, stuffed to the brim with guns and knives and lore books. Instead of Metallica, she'd blast whatever top forty trash was on the radio. She didn't really mind it much. She took her coffee with cream and sugar, and topped with whipped cream when she could get it. It kept her up enough to be alert, without being wired. She'd take off for days at a time with little to no warning, and hunt monsters. Claire, unlike most hunters, wasn't in it for the Messiah complex that usually came when you saved a bunch of people. Instead, Claire tortured demons; ganked vamps… to see if someone knew where the Hell her father was, or if he was even alive. She never had high hopes.

When Claire drank, she always went for tequila. When she wanted to get drunk, she wanted to do it fast and right. The mind-shattering headache that followed the next day was always worth it. It made her forget, just for a little while. When she couldn't drink, she'd hunt. She had a large machete named "Thomas" that she would use to hack apart anything that came in her way. Monsters were Claire's thing. Ghosts required too much effort. You would have to find out who they were, where they're buried… then salt and burn their bones—after digging them up. Claire left that to other hunters. She had better things to do.

The one time she made an exception changed her life forever. She was in Tulsa, looking for some old, asshole mayor's ghost. She was there on short notice. She needed a hunt, and the demons were quiet. A haunting made the most sense to go after, and she figured she could wrap it up within a week if she tried hard enough. Sure enough, she had the burial site pinned down in a matter of days. The sucker was hard to find, but was easy to flambé. However, she wasn't the only person working the case. She had just beaten a blonde hunter with sad eyes to the gravesite. He said his name was Michael, and that his car had broken down, and he was stranded until he found another one, and another hunt. He asked if Claire would let him ride with her, and she said yes.

Michael had a brother named Asher that had been killed a few years before by some odd kind of monster that Claire had never heard of. She had given her sympathies, but didn't really give a damn. Life sucks, people die, you move on. That was the motto she lived by, the wood that fueled her fire. The two hunters traveled together for about a year, until Michael lost a battle against a particularly nasty demon. The black-eyed bastard snapped his neck and left him on the pavement. By the time Claire got to him, it was too late. That night, she sat alone in a Motel 6 and cried for the first time since her father left. Michael was gone. She was alone again.


	3. Chapter 3

Two years later, there was an explosion of demonic activity around El Paso. Claire had taken the trip, just because she loved the way demons screamed when their flesh sizzled off at the touch of Holy Water. Some would argue that she enjoyed her work too much, but she thought she liked it just enough.

She was swarmed in the town square. Five demons on one hunter. Even as experienced in demon hunting as she was, she knew she'd never be able to take five. They'd have her pinned down and gutted before she could even _think_ about muttering, "Exorcizamus te." That's when Jesse fired a round of rock salt into the tallest one's chest. The demon dropped Claire, and she was able to scramble away. She ran and rounded a corner, landing with a crash on top of Ben Braeden.

"A girl like you shouldn't have a knife like that." Ben laughed as he helped her to her feet. "You could poke someone's eye out." He dusted off he jeans and leaned back on the building with a cocky smile.

"Could you be any more sexist?" She started walking back towards the demon party, knife in hand. She didn't expect Ben to chase after her, and if he did, she could just let him get a taste of Thomas.

"Braeden. Ben Braeden." He said before holding out his hand for a shake. She wanted nothing to do with the snarky little bastard that was chasing after her. She had bigger fish to fry.

"Do you want a fucking medal for knowing your name?" She buried the blade in her hand up to the hilt in a demon's chest. There was barely a glimmer of remorse in her eyes as she held him down and ran through the exorcism. The man inside was going to die, and she didn't care. The girl was different than anyone Ben had ever met. "It's Novak, by the way."

"That's Turner over there." Ben explained to her as they made their way back to their cars. Jesse was cleaning up, counting up the bodies and trying to call their families. He was always good with the sensitive crap like that. Ben couldn't imagine dealing with anything like that, and Claire… Ben wasn't sure Claire had an imagination, but he still asked her to travel with them. There was something about her eyes, the sadness and memories in them, that made Ben need to get to know her. She was complex and introverted, he simple. She seemed like the perfect addition to the team. They needed someone cold and calculating that would whip their butts into shape and keep them running like a well-oiled machine.

That was the Claire they signed up for. In a twist of fate, the Claire they received was damaged. She'd toss and turn half the night and wake up in tears. It was almost heartbreaking to watch the strong warrior by day turn into a mess by night. Ben wondered what had happened to make her like this, but he didn't dare pry. Hell, he had been traveling with Jesse for years, and never asked him why he thought he was a monster. Maybe Ben just didn't care…

Truth was, he just cared too much.


End file.
